On Machismo, Misogyny, and Murder in Mexico
Anecdotes from a Colombian woman on how Patriarchy harms women in her new homeland
*The Ship’s Log, for paid PWS subscribers, are the behind-the-scenes notes from our crew’s work as freelance journalists in an unpredictable region. This week’s installment is in honor of International Women’s Day, and written by founding pirata, Daniela Diaz, who now lives in Mexico If you’re a subscriber, thank you, and read on! If not, please consider supporting our work for just $5/month*
I came to Mexico after winning a journalism grant four months ago. Unexpectedly, I decided to stay — to explore, learn, and live in a country I have grown to love. As some readers of Pirate Wire Services know, I used to live in Bogota, Colombia, where I was born. Now, however, I plan to live in Mexico City part-time — which means PWS is more international than ever! It hasn’t been easy to migrate — I suppose it never is, for anyone. The precariousness, the distance from your support network, and the radically different climate and food have all been difficult. I can’t endure spicy food and here everything is spicy, even the water. Although I love Mexico, like any place, it has its problems, especially for a woman. And here in Mexico City, I have encountered one I never expected: a near-constant hypersexualization due to my nationality.
Readers may be surprised that I found the level of machismo in Mexico so shocking, especially after living in Colombia. I had considered it before arriving, but perhaps because I thought that in Latin America there is less exoticization of Latinas — compared to Europe for example — I found the day-to-day reality of the experience distressing. In Mexico, narco-culture has impacted all aspects of society. What, in the beginning, were compliments on my “cute Colombian accent” gradually escalated to improper comments and then, finally, to deeply uncomfortable overtures.
In the beginning, I tried to ignore it, a strategy women often employ to deal with the sexual aggression we experience daily. But two out-of-place comments in Cancun, in the Mexican Caribbean, though far from the first advances I experienced, really crystalized the experience of being fetishized, yet simultaneously being marked as an “outsider”.
The first was in a clothing store in a huge shopping mall. After a timid comment about my Colombian accent, the salesman asked me to call him “papasito” (“little daddy” in English, though in context perhaps translated better as “hottie” or “sexy”), after he alluded to the Colombian reggaetón singer Karol G, who often uses the term in her songs.
I had trouble understanding the experience and assumed it was an isolated comment, but days later it happened again in a second store in nearby Playa del Carmen. There too the salesman asked me to call him “papasito”, as well as other sexual terms, “in my adorable Colombian accent”.
But after spending more time in the region, I began to understand the context of these requests — a revelation that made the comments all the more disturbing, even if the comments themselves weren’t necessarily made with hostile intentions.
The State of Quintana Roo, which is closely associated with tourism (where Cancún and Tulum are located) has a serious problem with sexual trafficking, and Colombians are often stereotyped as sex workers.